


Rig The Scales, Cheat The Balance

by jessebee



Series: Moments Between (ROTJ) [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Exhaustion, F/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Slash (if you squint), Talking, recovering from trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 11:57:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9383897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: Leia tells Han a few things he missed while he was "dead."(Missing scene for RETURN OF THE JEDI)





	

 

 

He didn't want to close his eyes.

Whatever it was that'd wound Han up and kept him moving since Leia had peeled him out of that block of carbonite, it had finally run out. He was clean now, he was stretched out in ancient sleep-clothes in his own bunk on-board the _Falcon_ , and he was tired beyond belief.

Exhausted didn't begin to cover it – he felt like overcooked _ara_ noodles. Every muscle he had ached, because of course the damage done in Vader's hospitality chamber had been suspended right along with the rest of him. An eternal holding of one last breath, drawn to scream, sure that his own agony had lured Luke to destruction.

Six months in hibernation, Chewie had told him.

(Chewie had told him other things, too.)

Half a standard year, gone. Two-hundred-sixty _**thousand**_ minutes lost into nothing – great big wide-awake white can't see _can't_ _breathe_ _nothing_ –

The shudder wracked him right down to his core.

Soft shsh-slide of the cabin door opening announced Leia's return. She paused just inside, clad in something pale and shapeless, and looked at him.

Han held out his arms.

They fell back together into his bunk and Han buried his face against her hair. It was silky and sweeter-smelling now, free of grit and whatever the hells those metal things were that'd been in there earlier. He hugged her close and Leia practically burrowed into his embrace, warm and strong and _there_.

“You've lost weight,” Han murmured after a few minutes of just soaking her in, hardly aware of what he was saying. “Your bones are all close to your skin.”

Leia snorted, but it sounded a little shaky. “You sure know how to compliment a girl, don't you?”

Hells. “Leia – ”

“No, shh.” Leia shook her head where she'd tucked it against his neck and hugged him tighter. “Oh, Han. I've missed you.” She whispered it into his skin, like it was some kind of deep, precious secret.

Six months. And she'd had to _live_ through every one of those minutes.

Han's own arms tightened almost convulsively. Secret for secret. “I don't believe that you all – you shouldn't have come after me.”

Leia took a sharp breath and shivered, and whacked him on the arm. “Don't be stupid. There was never any question about it.”

Like it was the most reasonable, logical move ever. “You almost – Luke almost got himself killed!”

He didn't expect the gentle laugh. “He really didn't,” Leia said. Her fingers slipped inside the open neck of Han's shirt and rubbed. “He had it laid out, how things would most likely happen, what Jabba would do. We were playing the odds, yes, but we were at least fifty-fifty.”

_/I've taken care of everything./_

Something inside Han's chest went cold. “He _planned_ that? Nearly getting eaten alive? That – that _collar_ around your neck?”

“Not planned, not exactly.” Leia pushed up on one elbow and Han took a good, close-range look at her, now that his vision had finally cleared.

He'd been right: she _was_ thinner. Her eyes looked enormous above sharp cheekbones, and there were new lines around her mouth. “I should make you head for the galley, you oughta eat,” he murmured. “What've you been doing to yourself?”

Leia's expression did something complicated that he hadn't a hope of deciphering. “Food wasn't high on my list for a while,” she said. “And then Jabba's banquet offerings weren't exactly – my preferred cuisine, either.” Said lightly enough, but dark memory lurked behind her eyes.

Han's own less than happy memories of that establishment were more than enough to fill in what Leia hadn't said. He took hold of the single long, thick braid that fell across her shoulder and rubbed it, like a talisman, between his fingers.

But his gaze caught just inside the loose neck of her beigey-white tunic, where her skin was roughed and reddened. Where that damned collar had rubbed. Han's jaw hardened. “Well, whatever plan that was? Stunk. You shouldn't've had to do that.”

Leia closed her eyes for a moment.

“It wouldn't have been enough just to get you free,” she said quietly, and traced the small scar on his chin with a fingertip. “Jabba had to be stopped from coming after you again. Myself, I'd have been just as happy to get you out and then bomb the palace from orbit – ”

Han cracked a smile.

“ – but Luke was sure there were innocents in there, who had to have the chance to escape. And it was important to him that Jabba himself be given the chance to do the right thing, even though he didn't hold out any actual hope that it would happen.”

Innocents. “So you know that Jabba dealt in slaves as well as spice? 'Cause nobody cares what happens on Tatooine?”

“I do. I also heard a rumor,” Leia's mouth curved up, “that there was a jail-break out of Jabba's palace, happening right about the time we blew up the sail barge.”

Han outright grinned at that and Leia grinned back, her expression a bit fierce. “Luke grew up there, remember? He knew exactly what Jabba was and believe me, the idea of taking that slug down didn't bother him. He was blunt about the possibilities when we set this up,” she said, sobering. “We hoped I could get you free, but if that didn't work … well. I knew what I was walking into. We all did.”

And they'd still come after him. That was a big thought. A big, new, scary thought – a huge thought, and it sparked something hot and a little terrifying in Han's chest.

Leia tilted her head. “Now what's that look for?” she said, smiling again.

He didn't have the words, not at that moment. Hells, where did he even start?

Han swallowed and ran his hand up her sleeve, fingertips light across the red mark around her throat, brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheekbone and tried to ignore the way his hand shook.

Leia caught his hand in hers, smaller than his but so strong. She pressed a kiss to his palm and closed his fingers around it.

Han cupped his other hand around Leia's head and urged her back down and kissed her, savoring her taste, wallowing in her response and the feel of her and wishing he had the energy for something, anything more. But there were limits and he'd blown past his a while back – better to wait and enjoy things later rather than embarrassing himself now.

But Leia didn't seem to mind. She just tucked her head against his chin, snuggled close again and relaxed into him like he was the best full-body pillow ever, and sighed, her breath warm across Han's throat.

And that should be enough – that was worth everything – but while Han's body was shutting down, his brain wasn't. Because moments kept repeating on him, moments with Luke.

His friend's clear voice slicing through the confusion of Jabba's palace. The bracing support of his body when Han stumbled onto the skiff. Being caught between the comfort of Luke being there and the utter horror that _Luke_ w _as_ _there_ , right there and about to die, right next to Han. Because of Han.

Scalding regret that the only words he could manage to say to Luke then were ones twisted and mangled by the force of Han's own impotent fury.

The moment when Luke's dark, blurred form stepped off that plank into oblivion – Han closed his eyes despite himself and shivered.

“Hey, you cold? Let me drag the blanket up.”

And he was cold, but maybe not the kind that a blanket would help.

 _I wish Luke_ _was here, with_ _us,_ Han just managed not to say, maybe because he wasn't entirely sure how he meant it. And because he wasn't at all sure how the woman in his arms would take it, either, and he did have some tiny margin of self-preservation, no matter what Chewie said. “What happened while I was in deep-freeze?” he asked instead.

“Gods, what didn't?” Leia said, sounding somewhere between sarcastic and bone-tired.

“No, I mean – ” What did he mean? “Luke. What happened?”

Leia went still.

“Chewie said – a Jedi Knight?” Which wasn't all that Chewie had said, not by a long shot.

“Yes,” Leia said, her deep voice soft. “He's – well, you saw him.”

“Saw him? Not really,” Han said, putting as much snark in it as he could manage at that moment, and Leia snickered, which made him feel better.

“He's … “ Leia sighed. “He's a lot like my father described the Jedi, the ones he'd known. The things Luke can do now. The way he fights – he gave me his blaster, said he's not using it anymore.”

“He's _what?”_ Han's mouth dropped open.

“Hmm. He's only carrying the new lightsaber.”

“He's – wait, _new_ lightsaber? Why?” Hoping she wouldn't say what Chewie had said, because his partner had been wrong before. “Where's the old one?”

Leia took in a long breath, and let it back out. “Lost in Cloud City, Luke said. When Vader cut off his hand.”

Chewie hadn't been wrong. Sith _**fucking**_ _hells._ Han closed his eyes and reeled off, in gutter Corellian, the most vicious and anatomically-impossible curses he could think of.

“Well-put,” Leia murmured. And she sounded entirely too damned calm, but then, _she'd_ had six months to process it.

“Is he – all right?”

“I think so.”

“You _think_ so.”

A small movement that might have been a shrug. “He says he is, but he's … “

“He's – what?”

“ … different. He's calmer now, contained; a bit – detached, maybe.”

Luke, contained? _Detached?_ That concept didn't even compute, did it? But the way Luke had been on the skiff on the way out to the Pit …

“We talked a lot while you were – gone, about how to rescue you, some about his training. But there was always something he held back, something – Cloud City changed him and I'm not sure that it was just the loss of his hand.”

A tremor ran under Leia's skin and Han squeezed her a little, settling her more firmly in his arms. Loss. It always came back around to that, didn't it? Because you couldn't have it all, no matter what he liked to tell himself. There were kriffin' enormous scales somewhere that had to be balanced, and to have something you had to lose something else –

Han shoved the thought away. “Where's he gone to?”

“Back to Dagobah, to his teacher.” Leia sounded a little sleepy now, her voice slowing. She rubbed her face against Han's neck, sending a ripple of warmth through him. It felt like coming home. “But he said he wouldn't be long.”

“He'd better not be,” Han muttered into her hair. Because there were words that needed saying between them, between himself and Luke. And there'd be no more loss between the three of them, dammit, nevermind what he'd just been thinking. He'd spit in the eye of Fate before; he'd have no trouble doing it again.

No more losses, for any of them. Han wouldn't allow it.

 

*

*

*


End file.
